"The captain isn't even me, yet I'm supposed to keep an eye on Madara. What kind of bullshit is this?"
After leaving the tent and walking along the gravel path, Kosuke said lazily, "Madara, you'll lead this mission, but the Clan Head asked me to keep an eye on you. No problem with that, right?"
Madara, walking beside him, stopped at those words.
He turned to look at Kosuke's slovenly appearance, his brows drawing together slightly.
After a moment, he did not object.
"Then we'll meet at the camp entrance first thing tomorrow morning."
Kosuke vanished from where he stood.
He wanted to go back and get some more sleep. No one could stop him.
The morning mist had yet to disperse, and Uchiha Madara's red armor plates were already covered in dew.
The armor of the four team members was likewise damp with dew, their figures appearing and disappearing in the thin fog.
They were all ninja who had survived several battles, yet they kept peering into the mist.
"Is your captain always this slow when heading out on a mission?"
Kosuke's two team members exchanged glances, unsure what to say. They could only silently agree with Madara.
"Hey, hey, hey! What do you mean, always?"
An indignant retort came from the thinning mist. "Don't you know the saying? The early bird becomes a specimen, while the late hunter gets to eat meat?"
Kosuke walked over through the dew, an unfastened short weasel-fur coat casually draped over his black light armor as he yawned continuously.
Kosuke's two team members both sighed in relief, only to stiffen again when they saw the half-eaten rice ball in his hand and the wine gourd hanging at his waist—spoils stripped from a Senju scout's corpse the night before.
"Too slow!" Madara turned and headed toward the maple forest, his red armor plates clinking crisply together. "If you can't manage it, go back and keep sleeping. The Uzumaki barrier will fluctuate once at a quarter past five. There are only..."
"Nineteen minutes and seventeen seconds." Kosuke suddenly spoke, tossing the rice ball into the air. "But I can get there within seventeen minutes."
Kosuke swallowed the last bite of his rice ball and narrowed his eyes as he looked Madara up and down.
"Want to bet? The loser does one thing for the winner."
For some reason, Madara suddenly felt uncomfortable all over.
"Boring."
He ignored Kosuke and turned toward the outside of the camp. As he moved, he stirred up a gust of wind that sent the loose strands by his temples flying. "Keep up!"
The Body Flicker Technique activated!
Madara's figure left afterimages among the trees, the sound of his red scale armor cutting through the mist like a swimming snake hissing.
"Comrades, the revolution has yet to succeed. We must continue striving!"
Kosuke lightly shook his groggy head, circulated Chakra through his body, and leaped forward. His black light armor became a flowing dark shadow in the morning mist.
"Lord Madara!" the scar-faced jonin suddenly lowered his voice. "There's an Uzumaki sentry post three li ahead!"
"Leave it to me." Kosuke's voice came from overhead.
Madara looked up to see him hanging upside down from a branch, his feet hooked around it while the wine gourd spun on his fingertip. "Count to three, then hold your breath."
As soon as he finished speaking, Kosuke disappeared.
"One..." The wine from the gourd was flung into the air, condensing into tiny droplets within the lingering mist.
"Two..." Kosuke's hand seals moved like lightning as Lightning Release Chakra gathered in his palm into silvery streams.
"Three!"
With a thunderous roar, hundreds of electrified droplets crashed down like a rainstorm.
The liquor evaporated under the intense heat into a hazy white fog, and the cries of Uzumaki ninja mixed with the crackling of electricity.
Kosuke leaped down from the tree, and his gleaming blade instantly sliced across a sentry ninja's throat.
His figure did not pause in the slightest as he continued toward the interior of the barrier.
Seeing this, Madara immediately gathered Chakra and led the others after him.
As the final sounds of fighting faded, the three Uzumaki outposts marked on the scroll had been wiped out.
Kosuke stood amid the corpses, shaking the Scrolls he had found as the thick stench of blood washed over them. "Well? Our bet counts, right?"
Madara stared at the red glow around Kosuke's eyes, flicked the blood droplets from his Kusanagi Sword, then suddenly reached out and snatched the Scrolls from his hand, stuffing them into his ninja tool pouch. "We'll talk after the mission is over."
He turned and signaled the four team members to clear the battlefield and prepare to head for the eastern edge of the Uzumaki Clan.
"If you use another lunatic tactic like that next time, I'll tie you to a flagpole and dry you into jerky."
Kosuke watched his retreating back, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably before he suddenly laughed aloud.
The morning mist gradually dispersed, and sunlight filtered through the maple forest onto mud stained with blood. The Uchiha had already departed.
Several days later, eastern Land of Fire.
In an elm forest where the morning mist had yet to clear, Madara's red plate armor and Kosuke's black light armor overlapped into silhouettes atop the branches.
The rising sun pierced through the gaps in the leaves, weaving a net of light and shadow across their faces. Beneath the shadow of Madara's lashes, his Two Tomoe Sharingan turned silently.
"Madara, where are we now?" Kosuke's voice carried the crispness of dew as he tilted his head back and took a bite of dried venison. "If we keep going, the soles of my boots are going to wear through."
Madara glanced at his swinging foot. A long tear ran along the side of that boot, caused three days ago when he had stepped on an Exploding Tag in a Senju trap while retreating from the battlefield and been blasted away by the shockwave.
He turned and leaped to another tree. Amid the scraping of his plate armor, he finally said, "Fifty li from the Uzumaki Clan grounds."
Kosuke helplessly shrugged, leaned against the elm tree, and let his eyes droop shut.
Whoosh~
Of the two team members sent ahead to scout, one landed on the branch beside Madara and lowered his voice, tracing the terrain in the air with his fingertips. "Captain, Lord Kosuke, we found a group of Uzumaki resting beside a stream ahead. Nine are ninja, and ten are civilians."
Kosuke's half-closed eyes snapped open, and with a flicker, he appeared beside Madara.
"Did you find any hidden sentries?" Madara's voice was like an undercurrent beneath ice.
"Lord Madara, none found." Maki licked his dry lips. "But eight of their ninja are surrounding one female ninja, and four civilians are serving her by fetching water."
Sealing Technique!
The instant he met Madara's gaze, he saw the same thought rise in the other's eyes.
It was the scene from a year ago, when they had first encountered a group of Uzumaki ninja sealing something during a mission in the Land of Rivers.
"Let's hit them!" Kosuke crushed the dried venison in his hand. "Madara?"
Their gazes collided in midair.
"Let's do it!" Madara's plate armor suddenly emitted a faint hum, a sign that his Chakra was boiling. "You and I will each take the first kill. The rest..."
"The two of us handle two more each, while the four of them surround and kill three." Kosuke grinned, bits of meat still caught between his canine teeth. "Maki, tell Ryota, Kajiu, and Sasuke to hide and wait. Once Madara and I make our move, they can fight on their own. Afterward, immediately hunt down the civilians. Don't let any of them escape our sight alive."
"Yes." As Maki disappeared into the dense forest, Kosuke reached into his kunai pouch and drew out a specially made Tri-Pronged Kunai, spinning a cold gleam from its tip. "Three hundred thousand ryo says I kill more ninja than you."
Before you continue